But That Was In Another Country
by Mariagoner
Summary: And besides, the wench is dead. But dragging a dead woman back to the land of the living always has its consequences... Drace-lives AU series. Contains Drace and nearly all of the Archadian cast.
1. Prologue

Say, didn't I just swear that I wouldn't be putting up fic for quite a while...?

In any case, you know how fickle we psychology folk are. And here's a short, five-drabble long exploration of just how an actual relationship between Vayne and Drace _could_ play out that I'm using as a dress-rehearsal for a longer fic (tentatively titled "Judge Drace's Last Repose") I'm saving up for later. Questions, comments and discussion is, as always, _much_ encouraged. I'm just kinda flailing into the ether while trying to do something radically different with these two characters and feedback would be much loved.

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**Title: But That Was In Another Country  
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII  
Characters/Pairings: Vayne/Drace, Gabranth  
Rating: R  
Summary: And besides, the wench is dead. Five short drabbles exploring a very hypothetical relationship between two very unlikely people.  
Warnings: Contains slightly risqué sex talk. And character death-- but since this is about Drace and Vayne, that's probably a given.**

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**1. Attraction**

"Dear Sweet Holy Savior of an Esper," Drace yelped at the first sight of her, armored hands clenching in something far too close to embarrassment. "You're not really-- I mean, there is no possibility that you could be--"

But despite her own blinkered disbelief, all the girl before her did was look blank and remain disturbingly half-dressed. And in all fairness, Drace's reaction really wasn't her fault-- if anything, Drace should have already realized that turning into a judge meant to directly serve the Imperial House proper would serve her with a new series of challenges to survey, vault and occasionally topple past.

But even still, she hadn't realized that managing half-dressed little girls that Solidors a sundry had likely tumbled as a lark was included in her list of duties. Which probably was just as well-- she likely would have had for more compensation still if she had known exactly what proclivities her new charges held.

"My God, girl, put your shirt back on. You've no business being in the royal harem so soon. Do you even _menstruate_ yet?"

In the bare few seconds after she had spoken, she had expected tears or a tantrum as compensation. Hours later, after she would learn of what she accused the youngest son of the Emperor of Archadia of being, she'd be haunted by thoughts of being clapped off in chains to the dankest possible dungeon to which her paltry family name could descend. And in the end, she knew she had been more than lucky to have nothing more done to her besides having rather ribald stories of her inability to tell men apart from women circulate through the barracks.

(...Yet again).

But from their first meeting on, Drace had the dubious pleasure of learning that if there was one thing that Vayne Solidor was capable of, it was the feat of continually surprising those who stumbled onto his various plots.

And for the rest of her life, she would never stop marveling at the fact that his first reaction had been to _laugh._

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**2. Romance**

"But that was in another country," Vayne smoothly explained, his mouth tilting in a way that never ceased to make her marvel. "And besides, the wench _is_ dead."

Somehow, despite herself, she found herself surprised into a grin and almost more impressed than she cared to admit. "An interesting attempt at wooing, my lord. But do you _really_ think that merely explain away the lesser women in your life as sweetly as possible would be enough to muster up _my_ interest?"

He tilted back in his chair, all gangly teenage limbs and still growing nose, characteristic Solidor languor not quite perfected though it already showed signs of being polished in the time to come, of growing more absorbing yet.

"I don't see why not, my kind Judge Magister. Wielding a silver tongue hasn't failed most of the other men of my line, after all."

She had to laugh herself at this point, if only at the thought of some of the _previous_ tongues that have wagged for or in her direction. "And yet, it hasn't helped any of them garner what you actually believe to be possible."

"Well then," he replied, and his smile looked very nearly beautific. "I suppose it shall all come down to whether I can muster up any _other_ appreciable assets."

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**3. Passion**

He asked her about it, years after their first meeting, his hands roughly clasping the back of her neck. "Precisely how long did it take you to realize that I was less a girl hired to entertain my noble house than a member with it?"

"Shamefully long," she replied, and languidly traced an unarmored toe against his equally bare calf. "It's just as well that I seem to be more of a school marm for your brother than spy for the Fifth Division."

And he traced his fingers along her body, watching her lashes flutter as his fingers lowered down to her ankle, to hook, snatch, snag. "Then perhaps you could do with another demonstration of how my anatomy is finally mature enough to be fully differentiated from that of the gentler sex?"

She narrowed her eyes just a little at the designation, if only to balance out the flush on her face that came from the calluses pressed against her flesh. "You don't need to pretend towards superior age and wisdom, Vayne-- I don't exactly believe you've left your springtime of youth as of yet."

"Still, I _am_ old enough, though," he murmured, and with infernal cleverness, traced his mouth along her inner thigh. "At least, enough to engage in this."

She arched an eyebrow up at him-- quite a trick when with his fingers playing along a rather treacherously slippery path. And it was a _very_ good thing her features were mobile enough to do the talking for her-- she didn't know if her tongue was capable of flapping about when his own did the same so very well.

"Try to approach it from this angle," he suggested smugly once he finally resurfaced. "At least I'm finally wise enough to understand what that remark about menstruation actually _meant_."

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**4. Intimacy**

She had thought she had known before all the guises that evil could enter as.

She'd been a soldier since she had been nineteen and had clawed her way up the ranks of the judges soon after that. She had faced her share of murderers and madmen and monsters and been wounded herself in the attempts. She had spent her years in the Akademy learning of what do in the face of violence and depravity, until she was capable only of flinching at what would make other humes wretch.

But until now, she hadn't known that evil could wear so human a face, could be both caring and complicit, could be so gentle in the flesh.

"Look at me," he was saying now. "Look deeply. You'll find I am no different a man than who I was in the years that we've already spent, in the years since the incidents happened."

She had not spoken falsely when she had called herself sometimes ridiculously unobservant. And it really _was_ just as well that she was more a scholar than a spy, more inclined to use a library than a magnifying glass.

In the end, it had taken almost four years for her to riddle out the fate of the first of the Solidor brothers, two of which had been spent in their murderer's bed.

Evil wasn't always absolute, she realized dully. But it could be irredeemable. Just enough to realize that the past was a country she was exiled from, one to which she could never go back.

"If I have sinned," he whispered-- not desperately, simply intently, he did not believe he could lose her, not really-- "It was out of duty and it was only for my country. It was only in regard to the past."

Not absolute, she knew, but still irredeemable.

"I did what I did for the sake of Archadia, Drace. I was justified in every act."

And irretrievable for all that.

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**5. Commitment**

And when the time comes to finish it, it's somehow fitting that it is he who both orders and instigates it, his personal touch somehow suffusing every little detail of her end.

"We had a life together," he says right after, his voice hollowed of

(_because of? no, never that_)

regret. "Even if you hate me. Even if you left me. Even you must give me that."

"No," she whispered, knowing he meant it with the utmost sincerity, even as his noose had tightened about her neck. "Don't delude yourself. We never shared anything more than the dubious pleasure of a few years in bed. And for that--"

She pauses, groping for words, groping for what could hurt him the most, if he hasn't already devolved beyond affection.

"For that, my lord, please believe. For that, I am _glad_."

And his eyes never lifts from her even as Gabranth approaches, her newer lover the actor and her older one the director, precise and beautiful instruments in the tableau of her death.

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**Author's Note**: A couple of assumptions I'm making about this version of Drace and Vayne: 

1) If Penelo is spectacularly lucky, Drace is just the sort of woman she'll grow up to be. If Larsa is spectacularly _un_lucky, Vayne is just the sort of man _he'll_ grow up to be.

Therefore, I can't help but think that Vayne/Drace is more-or-less like Larsa/Penelo, only with more homicidal inclinations attached and a very dark ending involved. Any thoughts?

2) Monsters like Vayne are made, not born. And sometimes the slide from man to monster is so gradual that even the people who love them can't quite pin-point just when it occurs.

3) As gleefully enjoyable as it is to write a Vayne that seems to operate more-or-less solely on the joy he receives from manipulating and mind-fucking history and those around him, writing him as someone with enough humanity to actually be loving and enough moral cruelty to drive away all he loves eventually is an even more interesting tight-rope to walk.

Hopefully that's also interesting to read…


	2. A Pound of Flesh 1

Obviously, the smart thing to do when you're deadly frustrated with one series is to immediately start another. ;)

In any case this follows But That Was In Another Country and then diverges into the land of extreme AUs. Because we've had enough Vossler-Lives stories to make room for one of Drace (more or less…) surviving. And comments and criticisms are much appreciated, especially since I'm still not sure whether or not to continue with this strange little beginning. Am I going completely bonkers by trying to stage a black comedy in Archades…?

Also, this is for **logistikanyx**. Because she encouraged me in this mad enterprise and is generally full of win and amazing. Think of this as a Valentine's Day present to her and all my f-list, really!

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**Title: A Pound of Flesh, Chapter 1  
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII  
Series: Another Country  
Characters/Pairings: Drace, Eventually More of the Archadian Cast  
Rating: R  
Summary: Dragging a dead woman back to the land of the living always has its consequences.  
Note: Extremely strange Drace-Lives (…mostly…) AU in progress here.**

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When she still been certifiably among the alive and animated, Judge Magister Drace hadn't spent much of her time thinking of what it would be like to cease living. 

Part of it was due to the sheer time constraints imposed due to her duties towards an empire that fate, family and the haphazard genetic acquisition of female characteristic had led her to serve practically from her crib. As one of the preeminent judges of the greatest empire in Ivalice, there had been precious little time to waste on philosophical fripperies when there were future judges to train, foreign diplomats to entertain and feckless criminals to (mostly) reign in. And as the primary mentor to the most devious child to have been foisted on Ivalice since… well, to be frank, since his elder brother, Drace was all too keenly aware that more time had to be spent reigning her charge from unwittingly conquering half the known world than pondering the mysteries of death.

But an even larger part was surely be due to the fact that Drace had spent much of her life as a soldier and had long since internalized certain rules, marched to the beat of a martial band and learned to live by those certain strains of masochistic camaraderie that heralded Archadian society on all levels.

Doom before dishonor. Cremation before complacency. She had been made to recite those mottos as she had been ordained into her ranks but-- perhaps more than any other save Zargabaath-- she had thought that living and dying by those ideas would come by reasonably easily.

She had never wondered, though, of what would happen if she had _tried_ to die and woke up having _not_ successfully shuffled off the mortal coil after all.

She couldn't open either of her eyes. She couldn't part her teeth from her lips. She couldn't even sense anything in the span of skin stretching from her waist down to her feet.

And even before she had quite reached conscious thought, Drace thought she knew who to blame for all of the following.

"Whore-son of a _bitch_," she softly hissed, and dragged herself back to consciousness cursing.

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**Author's Note**: I probably ought to warn whatever poor souls that started reading this that this series-- if it continues-- is probably going to be a rather strange creature. It shall have many Drace monologues. It shall have many people stopping by into her room to watch her either live or die. It shall gratuitously torture Larsa, Gabranth, Zargabaath, and whatever other helpless Archadian characters I can possibly get my hands on. And it shall feature Vayne Solidor tip-toe-ing the subtle line that separates the spurned lover from the kind of lunatic that believes that dragging his younger brother off to see the death of six of said brother's friends and allies would make a fine moral lesson for the lad. 

In other words, it's meant to be a _rollicking_ black comedy. And I have no idea if I can pull it off or even it can even be done plausibly-- let's wait and see.

In any case, there might be a new installment ahead in-- hmmm-- maybe two weeks? Do let me know what you think. I've got a definite beginning (see above) and ending for this series but I'm not quite sure what will come in between…


End file.
